The well-publicized debate at the Creation Museum was not about two minds sparring.

In 1878, the American scholar and minister Sebastian Adams put the final touches on the third edition of his grandest project: a massive Synchronological Chart that covers nothing less than the entire history of the world in parallel, with the deeds of kings and kingdoms running along together in rows over 25 horizontal feet of paper. When the chart reaches 1500 BCE, its level of detail becomes impressive; at 400 CE it becomes eyebrow-raising; at 1300 CE it enters the realm of the wondrous. No wonder, then, that in their 2013 book Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline, authors Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton call Adams' chart "nineteenth-century America's surpassing achievement in complexity and synthetic power... a great work of outsider thinking."

The chart is also the last thing that visitors to Kentucky's Creation Museum see before stepping into the gift shop, where full-sized replicas can be purchased for $40.

Further Reading

That's because, in the world described by the museum, Adams' chart is more than a historical curio; it remains an accurate timeline of world history. Time is said to have begun in 4004 BCE with the creation of Adam, who went on to live for 930 more years. In 2348 BCE, the Earth was then reshaped by a worldwide flood, which created the Grand Canyon and most of the fossil record even as Noah rode out the deluge in an 81,000 ton wooden ark. Pagan practices at the eight-story high Tower of Babel eventually led God to cause a "confusion of tongues" in 2247 BCE, which is why we speak so many different languages today.

Adams notes on the second panel of the chart that "all the history of man, before the flood, extant, or known to us, is found in the first six chapters of Genesis."

Ken Ham agrees. Ham, CEO of Answers in Genesis (AIG), has become perhaps the foremost living young Earth creationist in the world. He has authored more books and articles than seems humanly possible and has built AIG into a creationist powerhouse. He also made national headlines when the slickly modern Creation Museum opened in 2007.

He has also been looking for the opportunity to debate a prominent supporter of evolution.

And so it was that, as a severe snow and sleet emergency settled over the Cincinnati region, 900 people climbed into cars and wound their way out toward the airport to enter the gates of the Creation Museum. They did not come for the petting zoo, the zip line, or the seasonal camel rides, nor to see the animatronic Noah chortle to himself about just how easy it had really been to get dinosaurs inside his Ark. They did not come to see The Men in White, a 22-minute movie that plays in the museum's halls in which a young woman named Wendy sees that what she's been taught about evolution "doesn't make sense" and is then visited by two angels who help her understand the truth of six-day special creation. They did not come to see the exhibits explaining how all animals had, before the Fall of humanity into sin, been vegetarians.

Further Reading

They came to see Ken Ham debate TV presenter Bill Nye the Science Guy—an old-school creation v. evolution throwdown for the Powerpoint age. Even before it began, the debate had been good for both men. Traffic to AIG's website soared by 80 percent, Nye appeared on CNN, tickets sold out in two minutes, and post-debate interviews were lined up with Piers Morgan Live and MSNBC.

While plenty of Ham supporters filled the parking lot, so did people in bow ties and "Bill Nye is my Homeboy" T-shirts. They all followed the stamped dinosaur tracks to the museum's entrance, where a pack of AIG staffers wearing custom debate T-shirts stood ready to usher them into "Discovery Hall."

Security at the Creation Museum is always tight; the museum's security force is made up of sworn (but privately funded) Kentucky peace officers who carry guns, wear flat-brimmed state trooper-style hats, and operate their own K-9 unit. For the debate, Nye and Ham had agreed to more stringent measures. Visitors passed through metal detectors complete with secondary wand screenings, packages were prohibited in the debate hall itself, and the outer gates were closed 15 minutes before the debate began.

Inside the hall, packed with bodies and the blaze of high-wattage lights, the temperature soared. The empty stage looked—as everything at the museum does—professionally designed, with four huge video screens, custom debate banners, and a pair of lecterns sporting Mac laptops. 20 different video crews had set up cameras in the hall, and 70 media organizations had registered to attend. More than 10,000 churches were hosting local debate parties. As AIG technical staffers made final preparations, one checked the YouTube-hosted livestream—242,000 people had already tuned in before start time.

An AIG official took the stage eight minutes before start time. "We know there are people who disagree with each other in this room," he said. "No cheering or—please—any disruptive behavior."

At 6:59pm, the music stopped and the hall fell silent but for the suddenly prominent thrumming of the air conditioning. For half a minute, the anticipation was electric, all eyes fixed on the stage, and then the countdown clock ticked over to 7:00pm and the proceedings snapped to life. Nye, wearing his traditional bow tie, took the stage from the left; Ham appeared from the right. The two shook hands in the center to sustained applause, and CNN's Tom Foreman took up his moderating duties.

Ham had won the coin toss backstage and so stepped to his lectern to deliver brief opening remarks. "Creation is the only viable model of historical science confirmed by observational science in today's modern scientific era," he declared, blasting modern textbooks for "imposing the religion of atheism" on students.

"We're teaching people to think critically!" he said. "It's the creationists who should be teaching the kids out there."

And we were off.

Two kinds of science

Digging in the fossil fields of Colorado or North Dakota, scientists regularly uncover the bones of ancient creatures. No one doubts the existence of the bones themselves; they lie on the ground for anyone to observe or weigh or photograph. But in which animal did the bones originate? How long ago did that animal live? What did it look like? One of Ham's favorite lines is that the past "doesn't come with tags"—so the prehistory of a stegosaurus thigh bone has to be interpreted by scientists, who use their positions in the present to reconstruct the past.

For mainstream scientists, this is simply an obvious statement of our existential position. Until a real-life Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown finds a way to power a Delorean with a 1.21 gigawatt flux capacitor in order to shoot someone back through time to observe the flaring-forth of the Universe, the formation of the Earth, or the origins of life, or the prehistoric past can't be known except by interpretation. Indeed, this isn't true only of prehistory; as Nye tried to emphasize, forensic scientists routinely use what they know of nature's laws to reconstruct past events like murders.

For Ham, though, science is broken into two categories, "observational" and "historical," and only observational science is trustworthy. In the initial 30 minute presentation of his position, Ham hammered the point home.

"You don't observe the past directly," he said. "You weren't there."

Ham spoke with the polish of a man who has covered this ground a hundred times before, has heard every objection, and has a smooth answer ready for each one.

In Ham's world, only changes that we can observe directly are the proper domain of science. Thus, when confronted with the issue of speciation, Ham readily admits that contemporary lab experiments on fast-breeding creatures like mosquitoes can produce new species. But he says that's simply "micro-evolution" below the family level. He doesn't believe that scientists can observe "macro-evolution," such as the alteration of a lobe-finned fish into a tiger over millions of years.

Because they can't see historical events unfold, scientists must rely on reconstructions of the past. Those might be accurate, but they simply rely on too many "assumptions" for Ham to trust them. When confronted during the debate with evidence from ancient trees which have more rings than there are years on the Adams Sychronological Chart, Ham simply shrugged.

"We didn't see those layers laid down," he said.

To him, the calculus of "one ring, one year" is merely an assumption when it comes to the past—an assumption possibly altered by cataclysmic events such as Noah's flood.

In other words, "historical science" is dubious; we should defer instead to the "observational" account of someone who witnessed all past events: God, said to have left humanity an eyewitness account of the world's creation in the book of Genesis. All historical reconstructions should thus comport with this more accurate observational account.

Mainstream scientists don't recognize this divide between observational and historical ways of knowing (much as they reject Ham's distinction between "micro" and "macro" evolution). Dinosaur bones may not come with tags, but neither does observed contemporary reality—think of a doctor presented with a set of patient symptoms, who then has to interpret what she sees in order to arrive at a diagnosis.

Given that the distinction between two kinds of science provides Ham's key reason for accepting the "eyewitness account" of Genesis as a starting point, it was unsurprising to see Nye take generous whacks at the idea. You can't observe the past? "That's what we do in astronomy," said Nye in his opening presentation. Since light takes time to get here, "All we can do in astronomy is look at the past. By the way, you're looking at the past right now."

Those in the present can study the past with confidence, Nye said, because natural laws are generally constant and can be used to extrapolate into the past.

"This idea that you can separate the natural laws of the past from the natural laws you have now is at the heart of our disagreement," Nye said. "For lack of a better word, it's magical. I've appreciated magic since I was a kid, but it's not what we want in mainstream science."

How do scientists know that these natural laws are correctly understood in all their complexity and interplay? What operates as a check on their reconstructions? That's where the predictive power of evolutionary models becomes crucial, Nye said. Those models of the past should generate predictions which can then be verified—or disproved—through observations in the present.

For instance, evolutionary models suggest that land-based tetrapods can all be traced back to primitive, fish-like creatures that first made their way out of the water and onto solid ground—creatures that aren't quite lungfish and yet aren't quite amphibians. For years, there was a big gap in the fossil record around this expected transition. Then, in 2004, a research team found a number of these "fishapods" in the Canadian Arctic.

"Tiktaalik looks like a cross between the primitive fish it lived amongst and the first four-legged animals," wrote the research team as they introduced their discovery to the world.

"What we want in science—science as practiced on the outside—is the ability to predict," said Nye, pointing to the examples of Tiktaalik in biological evolution and the results of the Cosmic Background Explorer mission in cosmology. Mainstream scientific predictions, even those focused on the past, can in fact be tested against reality. So far, however, "Mr. Ham and his worldview does not have this capability," Nye said. "It cannot make predictions and show results."

How many times over will a freely replicating cell produce enough progeny to sample the entire set of possible configurations of 5 million base pairs in 4 billion years? And try telling me that every one of those possible configurations could still be called E. coli.

It's a bogus example. Each division results in some cells inheriting the old parts, the younger cells also age and die.

Unless they are starved or attacked, bacteria DON'T DIE. But REGARDLESS, you are missing the point of the exercise. Get off your lazy ass and do it.

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But one thing is certain, e. coli after 4 billion years is still e. coli.

Oh my fucking god. If you change every basepair in the E.coli genome, it would NOT BE E.COLI ANYMORE.

You fucking idiot.

Yeah, guess what it would not survive to express itself with that drastic of a change. Nor would it hold up to the current understating of selection but fall within the impossibility of probability. This change has to happen gradually for many millions of years. And, as I stated earlier the homogeneity of the population it must exist in would not allow it.

The stupid hurts SOOO much.

Asexual organisms DO NOT NEED a homogenous population to propagate changes.

What was said is that you can't compare COMPUTER SCIENCE, which is not actually science, to biology.

You can easily compare computer science (which is math) to biology, and in fact the comparison is very enlightening. You just need to make sure the math you're using is relevant to biology.

Genetic Algorithms give a mathematical description of how evolution works. And because it's CS, and therefore just math, the description is very general. Any problem whose solution can be encoded as a series of bits (and all information can be encoded as bits, with DNA being a trivial case), and where a population of solutions are randomly modified and then selected according to a fitness function, are subject to the math of Genetic Algorithms. That math says that this process of modification and selection will find local maximums in the solution space -- without any part of the system needing any knowledge about the shape of that solution space*, or any knowledge of what a solution should look like "in the future"! The only thing needed is a method of judging the quality of solutions to decide which should propagate**.

Genetic Algorithms also tells us that once the population converges on a local maximum, given enough time part of the population may jump across a valley to another region with a different local maximum. Also, if the fitness landscape changes, then the population can rapidly change to a new local maximum or even maximums.

And all this can be demonstrated! People actually use GAs all the time to solve engineering problems with hundreds of thousands of variables, or to program FPGAs to conduct complex data processing, or even to create software. The math says it works, practical demonstrations say it works.

This is what Computer Science tells us about evolution: It has sound mathematical backing. It will work. There's no reason to believe it wouldn't.

Stingerman, your problem is that you're treating "Computer Science" as though it's just computer programming. You look at your nice elegant software and think that of course this couldn't have been slapped together randomly. Well of course you couldn't do that yourself. There's only one of you and you'd never be able to iterate rapidly enough to get sufficient generations (not to mention humans suck at "random"). But if you instead wrote software to do that for you so that you can get a population of more than 1, and many, many iterations, then you would find that you can randomly slap together a working program. It would probably not be elegant in every way. It would probably be messy, and suboptimal in some respects. If you started with a solution from an older problem, the new solution might carry a lot of seemingly useless cruft. But in other respects it might use what strikes you as extremely clever solutions you never would have thought of yourself.

I get that you aren't into evolutionary biology. But you should definitely check out Genetic Algorithms. They are fascinating for their own sake, but for someone with a CS background who has problem with the mechanics of evolution, nothing will do a better job of setting you straight on why not only evolution can work, it is virtually guaranteed to. It's all in the math. Which is what CS is.

* Which is why I like to use GAs when I don't have any idea what the solution should look like. But they can also be great when you do have such an idea, but want to know if there's something completely different you could be missing since the GA has no such preconceptions (unless you program them into the fitness function).

** Nature has the best fitness function: That which propagates gets to propagate.

Yes, and who created the fitness function to determine the solution domain? You want to emulate biological evolution, try the algorithm without a fitness function.

You can't make the connection that the organism's environment is analogous to the fitness function? EDIT: More to the point, successfully pumping out babies/copies in the given environment.

People who have bought into the ID line of thinking often have trouble understanding what an experiment is. If they saw Galileo rolling balls down a ramp, they'd have you believe it proves that every boulder that tumbled down a hill was physically pushed by God.

Your arguments do not dismiss alternative explanations nor do they support the gentle slope of selection theory over billions of years. The good argument is made that the these behaviors were already coded for and express themselves when necessary.

They checked for that. The E. coli experiment froze representative samples every so often and did gene sequencing to find out of any new genes or modifications to existing genes came up. The ability to metabolize citrate? New genes arose for that new feature. They only began to appear after a certain number of thousands of generations; the didn't occur before that point, and it wasn't present in all subsequent generations - just the branch that metabolized citrate.

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Examination of samples of the population frozen at earlier time points led to the discovery that a citrate-using variant (Cit+) had evolved in the population at some point between generations 31,000 and 31,500. They used a number of genetic markers unique to this population to exclude the possibility that the citrate-using E. coli were contaminants. They also found the ability to use citrate could spontaneously re-evolve in a subset of genetically pure clones isolated from earlier time points in the population's history. Such re-evolution of citrate use was never observed in clones isolated from before generation 20,000. Even in those clones that were able to re-evolve citrate use, the function showed a rate of occurrence on the order of one occurrence per trillion cell divisions. The authors interpret these results as indicating that the evolution of citrate use in this one population depended on one or more earlier, possibly nonadaptive "potentiating" mutations that had the effect of increasing the rate of mutation to an accessible level. (The data they present further suggests that citrate use required at least two mutations subsequent to this "potentiating" mutation) More generally, the authors suggest these results indicate (following the argument of Stephen Jay Gould) "that historical contingency can have a profound and lasting impact" on the course of evolution.[2]

In 2012, a team of researchers working under Lenski reported the results of a genomic analysis of the Cit+ trait that shed light on the genetic basis and evolutionary history of the trait.[5] The researchers had sequenced the entire genomes of twenty-nine clones isolated from various time points in the Ara-3 population's history. They used these sequences to reconstruct the phylogenetic history of the population, which showed that the population had diversified into three clades by 20,000 generations. The Cit+ variants had evolved in one of these, which they called Clade 3. Clones that had been found to be potentiated in earlier research were distributed among all three clades, but were over-represented in Clade 3. This led the researchers to conclude that there had been at least two potentiating mutations involved in Cit+ evolution. The researchers also found that all Cit+ clones sequenced had in their genomes a duplication mutation of 2933 base pairs that involved the gene for the citrate transporter protein used in anaerobic growth on citrate, citT. The duplication is tandem, resulting in two copies that are head-to-tail with respect to each other. This duplication immediately conferred the Cit+ trait by creating a new regulatory module in which the normally silent citT gene is placed under the control of a promoter for an adjacent gene called rnk. The new promoter activates expression of the citrate transporter when oxygen is present, and thereby enabling aerobic growth on citrate. Movement of this new regulatory module (called the rnk-citT module) into the genome of a potentiated Cit- clone was shown to be sufficient to produce a Cit+ phenotype. However, the initial Cit+ phenotype conferred by the duplication was very weak, and only granted a ~1% fitness benefit. The researchers found that the number of copies of the rnk-citT module had to be increased to strengthen the Cit+ trait sufficiently to permit the bacteria to grow well on the citrate, and that further mutations after the Cit+ bacteria became dominant in the population continued to accumulate that refined and improved growth on citrate. The researchers conclude that the evolution of the Cit+ trait suggests that new traits evolve through three stages: potentiation, in which mutations accumulate over a lineage's history that make a trait accessible; actualization, in which one or more mutations render a new trait manifest; and refinement, in which the trait is improved by further mutations.

Again, your argument that all this stuff is simply pre-existing genetic code has already been rebutted. See once more the link I gave you about observations of novel genes popping up. I am not fond of going back in circles just because you've selectively forgotten (or ignored) something I've gone over before.

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If a population does not have the necessary behavior when confronted with an environmental change that is life threatening it dies off in that environment. The organism that is already coded to handle the changing environment expresses the proper response and change in behavior within its coding. Otherwise your saying that the organism mutated to such a degree that it developed a whole new behavior.

This is exactly what happens. And yes, it is a gentle slope. They don't start mutating in reaction to the selective pressure (well, not usually... ) They are just mutating in unguided directions all the time. They are constantly building up to these slopes, but usually the slope isn't useful so there's no pressure to continue going in a certain direction; there's no bias in selection or favor to the existence of the slope, and it doesn't result in improved fitness. In some cases it happens that one of those directions results in a solution that lets an organism become more successful. That initial success lets the organism survive and propagate its genes, because those new genes work better than everyone else's, which means the offspring bearing it have more opportunities to change and find even more efficient solutions over generations. Other times, entire populations die out. That's called extinction, and it's what happened to more than 99% of all things that have ever lived. The only way not to evolve is to become extinct.

But you're assuming that the new genetic expression was not coded for. Even Computer Scientists can write a genetic algorithm with a fitness domain to allow us to express most efficient solution. The latest studies show that genetic code will change its expression based on environmental and even emotional factors which will be passed on allowing our children to start out at an advantage. This is not selection but already coded into the DNA. But, we remain humans. The e. coli was already coded with a fitness domain and adapts based on its already built in coding which includes expressing the solution genetically for posterity sake. This is not selection, this is a pre coded behavior.

Yes, and who created the fitness function to determine the solution domain? You want to emulate biological evolution, try the algorithm without a fitness function.

You mean try WITH the CORRECT fitness function, which is: "That which survives to reproduce, survives to reproduce." Natural Selection. Nobody needed to "create" the fact that if a self-replicating system fails to replicate, then it won't replicate. It's reflexive. Literally, in the mathematical sense.

Yes, and who created the fitness function to determine the solution domain? You want to emulate biological evolution, try the algorithm without a fitness function.

You mean try WITH the CORRECT fitness function, which is: "That which survives to reproduce, survives to reproduce." Natural Selection. Nobody needed to "create" the fact that if a self-replicating system fails to replicate, then it won't replicate. It's reflexive. Literally, in the mathematical sense.

Yes, of course, but you have to believe that that "correct" fitness function came on the scene before the evolutionary process started. You see evolution only starts after life and reproduction somehow appeared.

Yes, and who created the fitness function to determine the solution domain? You want to emulate biological evolution, try the algorithm without a fitness function.

You mean try WITH the CORRECT fitness function, which is: "That which survives to reproduce, survives to reproduce." Natural Selection. Nobody needed to "create" the fact that if a self-replicating system fails to replicate, then it won't replicate. It's reflexive. Literally, in the mathematical sense.

Yes, of course, but you have to believe that that "correct" fitness function came on the scene before the evolutionary process started. You see evolution only starts after life and reproduction somehow appeared.

The "correct fitness function" is just simple logic. Even you should be able to recognize that.

But you're assuming that the new genetic expression was not coded for.

IT WASN'T. THOSE GENES WERE NOT THERE BEFORE. THAT'S THE ONLY "CODE" THERE IS. THEY WEREN'T JUST SILENT, THEY DID NOT EXIST.

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The e. coli was already coded with a fitness domain...

The "fitness domain" is not something intrinsic to the organism. Fitness is an interaction between the organism and the environment. Change the environment enough, and what was once fit becomes unfit and vice versa. Take away the environment entirely and there isn't anything by which to judge fitness.

Yes, and who created the fitness function to determine the solution domain? You want to emulate biological evolution, try the algorithm without a fitness function.

You mean try WITH the CORRECT fitness function, which is: "That which survives to reproduce, survives to reproduce." Natural Selection. Nobody needed to "create" the fact that if a self-replicating system fails to replicate, then it won't replicate. It's reflexive. Literally, in the mathematical sense.

Yes, of course, but you have to believe that that "correct" fitness function came on the scene before the evolutionary process started. You see evolution only starts after life and reproduction somehow appeared.

The "correct fitness function" is just simple logic. Even you should be able to recognize that.

If he's a programmer he's the most unfit, unemployable one I've ever encountered...and I knew programmer that smoked a LOT of weed. Daily.

Yes, and who created the fitness function to determine the solution domain? You want to emulate biological evolution, try the algorithm without a fitness function.

You mean try WITH the CORRECT fitness function, which is: "That which survives to reproduce, survives to reproduce." Natural Selection. Nobody needed to "create" the fact that if a self-replicating system fails to replicate, then it won't replicate. It's reflexive. Literally, in the mathematical sense.

Yes, of course, but you have to believe that that "correct" fitness function came on the scene before the evolutionary process started. You see evolution only starts after life and reproduction somehow appeared.

No, that doesn't make any sense. The fitness function aka Natural Selection is a direct consequence of the fact that if a self-replicating system fails to replicate, it fails to replicate, and if it does replicate, it does (by the reflexive axiom). Obviously this does not apply to non-replicating systems. Therefore the fitness function only came on the scene after a self-replicating system appeared, and then its existence is reflexive, as is the evolutionary process of which the fitness function is a part.

And once you have that self-replicating system, and the associated reflexive fitness function, then you have a system governed by the math of Genetic Algorithms which amply demonstrate that this is sufficient to provide adaptation into wildly different and changing ecosystems, resulting in a proliferation of solutions.

The only thing we must believe is that, somehow, a self-replicating system came to be. Hmm, is this a safe assumption? *looks out window* Yep, I think it is.

How the first replicators came to be is an open question, but also a different one. Once you have them, evolution works.

Genetic mutation by coding transcription error at the pre cell level takes milli-seconds (if that), not millennia.If there was a “branching”, there must have been a “point of divergence” or a “line of delineation” to the Canine (novel form) from it’s so-called direct common “non canine” ancestor. If the direct common “non canine” ancestor had multiple genetic changes leading up to a “crossing over genetic mutational change” so the very first canine was produced and born, this point in time could be observed within a short time by a “tipping point” change occurring. Otherwise the non canine ancestor would always be a non canine ancestor, just with an increasing X amount of genetic mutations. So to say we could not observe such a change “in a lifetime” is to say there was not previous crossover “point” in a short period of time. Creationists explain that there was no “point of divergence”, as the direct common ancestor of the canine is the canine, hence now, we do not see any observable “crossover points” like a canine to non canine…. “in our lifetime”, not because of “unrealistic timeframes”.

We do see many extinctions in our lifetime, but not from genetic mutations causing new varieties. Creationists do not observe an organism that comes from e.coli, that is not a variety of e.coli. Also non observable is a type of non canine that can come from a canine, or a non sheep from a sheep. The varieties we observe, are just that- varieties, whether the wolf or poodle “subsets” in the canine “set”, or the new type of e.coli from genetic mutation in the e.coli “set”. Hence we see varieties formed, and not as Darwin said the “consequent extinction” of the “common” or “less favoured form” , when the new “variety” is produced.

The reason is contained in the first quoted line, 'in our lifetime'. The time scale required for such large change (or more correctly, accumulation of changes) is much larger than our lifetime or even the existence of modern science to date.

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It is not verifiable through observation of current living organisms to get a change from a “parent variety”- call it X organism to “more favoured one” – call it Y organism, where Y is not a variety of X. That is, we cannot answer the question (with the example given of an e.coli variety)- “Can we observe to get a non e.coli from an e.coli?” with a definitive – “Yes”, (not a “Yes and no”). We do not observe any “consequent” extinctions, as Darwin puts it, as a result of any favourable genetic mutations. We still have the “common” e.coli.

I think you are expecting a global extinction event when science would expect a local extincion event at the population level as the old are outcompeted. Using Lemski's work as an example, the question would be, "In the petri dish in which e.coli evolved the ability to metabolise citrate, are the old e.coli extinct?", not "Are all e.coli now extinct?".

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Similarly, we obviously do not observe the “consequent extinction” of “canine” through natural (or artificial) selection or through genetic mutation (whether beneficial or not). For creationists, extinction is not required for the original type produced. For Darwin, extinction "almost inevitably follows" from a new type forming. We do not observe instances of the descriptive - "almost inevitably follows".

Again, unrealistic timeframe.

I'm sorry, can you use paragraphs and try to form your sentences more clearly? It's really hard to follow you.

Yes, and who created the fitness function to determine the solution domain? You want to emulate biological evolution, try the algorithm without a fitness function.

You mean try WITH the CORRECT fitness function, which is: "That which survives to reproduce, survives to reproduce." Natural Selection. Nobody needed to "create" the fact that if a self-replicating system fails to replicate, then it won't replicate. It's reflexive. Literally, in the mathematical sense.

Yes, of course, but you have to believe that that "correct" fitness function came on the scene before the evolutionary process started. You see evolution only starts after life and reproduction somehow appeared.

This is without question the dumbest thing you've said (and there's a lot of competition for the title).

Come, on; think. Use your head. You're asking where the self-reflexive concept of "propagation of only the propagatable" comes from.

This entire awful argument is happening because you keep doggedly mis-applying concepts from computer programing that you haven't even got straight in the first place. Obviously everything happening inside a computer can be traced back to human agency; you're looking for the equivalent feature in the natural world and not finding it and getting confused, over and over. Abandon the comparison; it's not sufficient. Stop thinking in terms of an external controlling force (and complaining when you can't find it). It's not that hard!

The studies that show that mutations whether adaptive or hyper are allows caused by built in responses to induced stress. The built in mechanisms regulate the mutations within the population until the proper response deals with the external stress. The built in systems are designed to mutate and adapt to induced stresses within coded limits. The mechanism of change is built in. The conclusions that evolutionists draw is that this somehow supports a form of natural selection. The conclusion that creationists draw is that this clearly shows that an intelligent design was already built in to deal with a changing environment. After all the mechanism for managing the change is part of the e. coli and unless the change properly deals with the induced stress it doesn't survive the population.

How many times over will a freely replicating cell produce enough progeny to sample the entire set of possible configurations of 5 million base pairs in 4 billion years? And try telling me that every one of those possible configurations could still be called E. coli.

It's a bogus example. Each division results in some cells inheriting the old parts, the younger cells also age and die. But one thing is certain, e. coli after 4 billion years is still e. coli. It never turns into anything else. I make my own yogurt every week, I count on my lacto bacteria always producing more lacto bacteria. Here's the interesting thing, I need to keep them fed and at the right temperature for them to survive and thrive. I have to make sure none of their predators enter the mix and when some do, the yogurt benefits by giving it a slightly different flavor. However, the next batch the flavor resets, because the lacto bacteria produces a bacteriocin called nisin that will then kill this intruder and make sure it doesn't live on in the starter culture. Unless of course the predator is able to multiply to a large enough population and then through its own communication system with its fellow mates, its starts simultaneously giving off its own toxins that target the lacto bacteria and wipes out my good culture.

But with my watchful eye and maintaining a good environment that hasn't happened yet. My point is, the very e. coli population will not allow a serious threat to its homogeneity to accommodate the very selection process that you require for your theory.

So... your yogurt tastes the same this week as it does last week, therefore, complex evolutions over millions of years are impossible? Let's ignore all the other problems with your statement and just point out that, on a small enough time scale, seasonal weather variations and gravity also seem nonexistent.

How many times over will a freely replicating cell produce enough progeny to sample the entire set of possible configurations of 5 million base pairs in 4 billion years? And try telling me that every one of those possible configurations could still be called E. coli.

It's a bogus example. Each division results in some cells inheriting the old parts, the younger cells also age and die. But one thing is certain, e. coli after 4 billion years is still e. coli. It never turns into anything else. I make my own yogurt every week, I count on my lacto bacteria always producing more lacto bacteria. Here's the interesting thing, I need to keep them fed and at the right temperature for them to survive and thrive. I have to make sure none of their predators enter the mix and when some do, the yogurt benefits by giving it a slightly different flavor. However, the next batch the flavor resets, because the lacto bacteria produces a bacteriocin called nisin that will then kill this intruder and make sure it doesn't live on in the starter culture. Unless of course the predator is able to multiply to a large enough population and then through its own communication system with its fellow mates, its starts simultaneously giving off its own toxins that target the lacto bacteria and wipes out my good culture.

But with my watchful eye and maintaining a good environment that hasn't happened yet. My point is, the very e. coli population will not allow a serious threat to its homogeneity to accommodate the very selection process that you require for your theory.

So... your yogurt tastes the same this week as it does last week, therefore, complex evolutions over millions of years are impossible? Let's ignore all the other problems with your statement and just point out that, on a small enough time scale, seasonal weather variations and gravity also seem nonexistent.

I can continue to make yogurt for the rest of my life and pass on my culture to my children and so on and so on. The culture will continue to work as long as the proper environment and nutrition is supplied it. Make a major change and we'll experience a die-off event. Add a little citrus and the culture will adapt, add a lot of citrus and they'll die off. What's interesting is that once the little bit of citrus disappears the major population will once again exert its homogeneity. It will always be lacto bacteria. Nothing more than a built in coded adaption system.

Go to San Francisco and try their sour dough bread, hundreds of years of culturing, still makes sour dough bread. Though I swear one of the loafs winked at me

The studies that show that mutations whether adaptive or hyper are allows caused by built in responses to induced stress.

No such studies that give such a sweeping conclusion exist. This can't be applied to all cases of evolutionary change through mutation.

Quote:

The built in mechanisms regulate the mutations within the population until the proper response deals with the external stress.

This happens sometimes, especially in some types of organisms, but not always. Stress-induced mutagenesis is itself an evolved trait, an adaptation. It works on top of the background rate of mutation that's constantly going on in all populations.

The studies that show that mutations whether adaptive or hyper are allows caused by built in responses to induced stress.

No such studies that give such a sweeping conclusion exist. This can't be applied to all cases of evolutionary change through mutation.

Quote:

The built in mechanisms regulate the mutations within the population until the proper response deals with the external stress.

This happens sometimes, especially in some types of organisms, but not always. Stress-induced mutagenesis is itself an evolved trait, an adaptation. It works on top of the background rate of mutation that's constantly going on in all populations.

Of course your not going find any sweeping conclusions, the paper would never get published in this environment if the scientists drew that conclusion, however the actual study less their opinion paints a different picture. If scientists had the freedom to draw their own conclusions and still get published evolution would not be behind so many of the other sciences.

Of course your not going find any sweeping conclusions, the paper would never get published in this environment if the scientists drew that conclusion...

Ah, I see. The evil Darwinist conspiracy.

Time to close the door on this one, guys. Ignorance was bad enough, cognitive bias was pushing it, but add conspiracy ideation on top and rational discussion is just not possible.

Yeah really? You're pretending to be surprised that legitimate scientists have had trouble getting published in the past because they didn't agree with the norm? I'm not just talking about evolution, but in general. It's a long standing problem and not due to an evolutionary conspiracy it's just the nature of this community. Drastic changes in any theory is resisted by the larger population. To my point on the homogeneity of any population.

How many times over will a freely replicating cell produce enough progeny to sample the entire set of possible configurations of 5 million base pairs in 4 billion years? And try telling me that every one of those possible configurations could still be called E. coli.

It's a bogus example. Each division results in some cells inheriting the old parts, the younger cells also age and die. But one thing is certain, e. coli after 4 billion years is still e. coli. It never turns into anything else. I make my own yogurt every week, I count on my lacto bacteria always producing more lacto bacteria. Here's the interesting thing, I need to keep them fed and at the right temperature for them to survive and thrive. I have to make sure none of their predators enter the mix and when some do, the yogurt benefits by giving it a slightly different flavor. However, the next batch the flavor resets, because the lacto bacteria produces a bacteriocin called nisin that will then kill this intruder and make sure it doesn't live on in the starter culture. Unless of course the predator is able to multiply to a large enough population and then through its own communication system with its fellow mates, its starts simultaneously giving off its own toxins that target the lacto bacteria and wipes out my good culture.

But with my watchful eye and maintaining a good environment that hasn't happened yet. My point is, the very e. coli population will not allow a serious threat to its homogeneity to accommodate the very selection process that you require for your theory.

So... your yogurt tastes the same this week as it does last week, therefore, complex evolutions over millions of years are impossible? Let's ignore all the other problems with your statement and just point out that, on a small enough time scale, seasonal weather variations and gravity also seem nonexistent.

I can continue to make yogurt for the rest of my life and pass on my culture to my children and so on and so on. The culture will continue to work as long as the proper environment and nutrition is supplied it. Make a major change and we'll experience a die-off event. Add a little citrus and the culture will adapt, add a lot of citrus and they'll die off. What's interesting is that once the little bit of citrus disappears the major population will once again exert its homogeneity. It will always be lacto bacteria. Nothing more than a built in coded adaption system.

Go to San Francisco and try their sour dough bread, hundreds of years of culturing, still makes sour dough bread. Though I swear one of the loafs winked at me

Oh, so you're not comparing a week-long timescale to a millions-of-years timescale, you're comparing a ~200-year-timescale to a millions-of-years timescale. A mismatch of seven orders of magnitude was ridiculous, but only five or six orders of magnitude seems legit.

How many times over will a freely replicating cell produce enough progeny to sample the entire set of possible configurations of 5 million base pairs in 4 billion years? And try telling me that every one of those possible configurations could still be called E. coli.

It's a bogus example. Each division results in some cells inheriting the old parts, the younger cells also age and die. But one thing is certain, e. coli after 4 billion years is still e. coli. It never turns into anything else. I make my own yogurt every week, I count on my lacto bacteria always producing more lacto bacteria. Here's the interesting thing, I need to keep them fed and at the right temperature for them to survive and thrive. I have to make sure none of their predators enter the mix and when some do, the yogurt benefits by giving it a slightly different flavor. However, the next batch the flavor resets, because the lacto bacteria produces a bacteriocin called nisin that will then kill this intruder and make sure it doesn't live on in the starter culture. Unless of course the predator is able to multiply to a large enough population and then through its own communication system with its fellow mates, its starts simultaneously giving off its own toxins that target the lacto bacteria and wipes out my good culture.

But with my watchful eye and maintaining a good environment that hasn't happened yet. My point is, the very e. coli population will not allow a serious threat to its homogeneity to accommodate the very selection process that you require for your theory.

So... your yogurt tastes the same this week as it does last week, therefore, complex evolutions over millions of years are impossible? Let's ignore all the other problems with your statement and just point out that, on a small enough time scale, seasonal weather variations and gravity also seem nonexistent.

I can continue to make yogurt for the rest of my life and pass on my culture to my children and so on and so on. The culture will continue to work as long as the proper environment and nutrition is supplied it. Make a major change and we'll experience a die-off event. Add a little citrus and the culture will adapt, add a lot of citrus and they'll die off. What's interesting is that once the little bit of citrus disappears the major population will once again exert its homogeneity. It will always be lacto bacteria. Nothing more than a built in coded adaption system.

Go to San Francisco and try their sour dough bread, hundreds of years of culturing, still makes sour dough bread. Though I swear one of the loafs winked at me

Oh, so you're not comparing a week-long timescale to a millions-of-years timescale, you're comparing a ~200-year-timescale to a millions-of-years timescale. A mismatch of seven orders of magnitude was ridiculous, but only five or six orders of magnitude seems legit.

The point was that the mutations that occur are always to promote the survival of the e coli as e coli. Not to change it into another distinct organism. The lacto bacteria wants to digest lactose, replicating as it does so. A change in its environment causes a brute force mutation response with multiple sub populations forming. If the stress is survivable by one of the sub population survives until the stress is removed. However all the variations continue to be lacto bacteria. If the environment drastically changes, the entire population dies off even the mutations. If the nutrition disappears, the entire population dies off including the mutants.

And, unlike what your trying to prove with the math, mutations happen infrequently. The reason why is that they need to form a sub population. Most just die off. In the end the Micro organism only displays a survival adaption which mechanism is already built in. You try to suggest that the mutation is some sort of accident, but it is actually accommodated within the e coli biology.

The point was that the mutations that occur are always to promote the survival of the e coli as e coli. Not to change it into another distinct organism. The lacto bacteria wants to digest lactose, replicating as it does so. A change in its environment causes a brute force mutation response with multiple sub populations forming. If the stress is survivable by one of the sub population survives until the stress is removed. However all the variations continue to be lacto bacteria. If the environment drastically changes, the entire population dies off even the mutations. If the nutrition disappears, the entire population dies off including the mutants.

How many times over will a freely replicating cell produce enough progeny to sample the entire set of possible configurations of 5 million base pairs in 4 billion years? And try telling me that every one of those possible configurations could still be called E. coli.

It's a bogus example. Each division results in some cells inheriting the old parts, the younger cells also age and die. But one thing is certain, e. coli after 4 billion years is still e. coli. It never turns into anything else. I make my own yogurt every week, I count on my lacto bacteria always producing more lacto bacteria. Here's the interesting thing, I need to keep them fed and at the right temperature for them to survive and thrive. I have to make sure none of their predators enter the mix and when some do, the yogurt benefits by giving it a slightly different flavor. However, the next batch the flavor resets, because the lacto bacteria produces a bacteriocin called nisin that will then kill this intruder and make sure it doesn't live on in the starter culture. Unless of course the predator is able to multiply to a large enough population and then through its own communication system with its fellow mates, its starts simultaneously giving off its own toxins that target the lacto bacteria and wipes out my good culture.

But with my watchful eye and maintaining a good environment that hasn't happened yet. My point is, the very e. coli population will not allow a serious threat to its homogeneity to accommodate the very selection process that you require for your theory.

So... your yogurt tastes the same this week as it does last week, therefore, complex evolutions over millions of years are impossible? Let's ignore all the other problems with your statement and just point out that, on a small enough time scale, seasonal weather variations and gravity also seem nonexistent.

I can continue to make yogurt for the rest of my life and pass on my culture to my children and so on and so on. The culture will continue to work as long as the proper environment and nutrition is supplied it. Make a major change and we'll experience a die-off event. Add a little citrus and the culture will adapt, add a lot of citrus and they'll die off. What's interesting is that once the little bit of citrus disappears the major population will once again exert its homogeneity. It will always be lacto bacteria. Nothing more than a built in coded adaption system.

Go to San Francisco and try their sour dough bread, hundreds of years of culturing, still makes sour dough bread. Though I swear one of the loafs winked at me

Oh, so you're not comparing a week-long timescale to a millions-of-years timescale, you're comparing a ~200-year-timescale to a millions-of-years timescale. A mismatch of seven orders of magnitude was ridiculous, but only five or six orders of magnitude seems legit.

The point was that the mutations that occur are always to promote the survival of the e coli as e coli. Not to change it into another distinct organism. The lacto bacteria wants to digest lactose, replicating as it does so. A change in its environment causes a brute force mutation response with multiple sub populations forming. If the stress is survivable by one of the sub population survives until the stress is removed. However all the variations continue to be lacto bacteria. If the environment drastically changes, the entire population dies off even the mutations. If the nutrition disappears, the entire population dies off including the mutants.

And, unlike what your trying to prove with the math, mutations happen infrequently. The reason why is that they need to form a sub population. Most just die off. In the end the Micro organism only displays a survival adaption which mechanism is already built in. You try to suggest that the mutation is some sort of accident, but it is actually accommodated within the e coli biology.

Jesus where is a mod when you need one. If this isn't trolling then I really don't know what is. I cannot believe you are actually attempting to parse the huge amount of data that has been given to you. Because you keep posting things like this, where a large number of words say exactly >nothing<.

You entire misapprehension can be boiled down to this quote though "The point was that the mutations that occur are always to promote the survival of the e coli as e coli." - because (as Wheels and others have desperately attempted to get you to understand) mutations are R.A.N.D.O.M. they are not promoting anything! Mutations which make an organism less fit tend to not propogate, and visa versa. But most mutations don't have any major effect at all.

Hell, I know you'll ignore everything written. This is more a shout out to all the commenters fighting the good fight and attempting to engage you in actual discussion when faced with your willful absurdity.

Jesus where is a mod when you need one. If this isn't trolling then I really don't know what is. I cannot believe you are actually attempting to parse the huge amount of data that has been given to you. Because you keep posting things like this, where a large number of words say exactly >nothing<.

You entire misapprehension can be boiled down to this quote though "The point was that the mutations that occur are always to promote the survival of the e coli as e coli." - because (as Wheels and others have desperately attempted to get you to understand) mutations are R.A.N.D.O.M. they are not promoting anything! Mutations which make an organism less fit tend to not propogate, and visa versa. But most mutations don't have any major effect at all.

Hell, I know you'll ignore everything written. This is more a shout out to all the commenters fighting the good fight and attempting to engage you in actual discussion when faced with your willful absurdity.

Show me a recent study that clearly shows that e. coli mutations are random. They occur due to induced stress and are regulated by the e. coli's own built in systems:

Quote:

Recent evidence strongly suggests that both adaptive mutation and hypermutation are induced responses to stress. As discussed above, several components of adaptive mutation in FC40 are part of the SOS response (16), which is at least partially induced during lactose selection. Some components of adaptive mutation, in particular DNA Pol IV, are also positively regulated by RpoS (44), which is the regulator of the general stress response (43).

Jesus where is a mod when you need one. If this isn't trolling then I really don't know what is. I cannot believe you are actually attempting to parse the huge amount of data that has been given to you. Because you keep posting things like this, where a large number of words say exactly >nothing<.

You entire misapprehension can be boiled down to this quote though "The point was that the mutations that occur are always to promote the survival of the e coli as e coli." - because (as Wheels and others have desperately attempted to get you to understand) mutations are R.A.N.D.O.M. they are not promoting anything! Mutations which make an organism less fit tend to not propogate, and visa versa. But most mutations don't have any major effect at all.

Hell, I know you'll ignore everything written. This is more a shout out to all the commenters fighting the good fight and attempting to engage you in actual discussion when faced with your willful absurdity.

Show me a recent study that clearly shows that e. coli mutations are random. They occur due to induced stress and are regulated by the e. coli's own built in systems:

Quote:

Recent evidence strongly suggests that both adaptive mutation and hypermutation are induced responses to stress. As discussed above, several components of adaptive mutation in FC40 are part of the SOS response (16), which is at least partially induced during lactose selection. Some components of adaptive mutation, in particular DNA Pol IV, are also positively regulated by RpoS (44), which is the regulator of the general stress response (43).

Every mutagenesis experiment with E. coli ever done shows that it is random. If it wasn't, we wouldn't have to screen millions of E. coli to find just one that has the particular base change necessary for survival on selective media.

The study you are citing, if it is what I think it is, is only talking about the overall rate of mutagenesis increasing in response to stress, NOT that it somehow knows what mutation it needs to make and makes it.